Pig News for Berkeley: Il Porcellino Opens Today

Bill Miner and Brian Albano finally got the go-ahead from the city yesterday afternoon, so their new deli and market, Il Porcellino, is officially in business today. The doors of the shrine to swine will open at 10:30 a.m.

In addition to a range of house-cured meats, cheeses and packaged pantry items, Il Porcellino will offer sandwiches, salads and soups. Butcher Corey Nead, whose experience includes the Local Butcher Shop in Berkeley, California, joined the team earlier this year and chef Bryan Languell is on board to execute the menu. Opening-day soups will include gumbo made with andouille, tasso ham and chicken; heirloom tomato-basil bisque; and squash-apple soup served with pork-rillette toast.

While some of the cured meats — cacciatore, finocchio, smoked chorizo, genoa salami — are weeks away from being ready, there's still plenty of good stuff in the deli case: mortadella, bacon and summer sausage, for starters. While a number of restaurants have introduced cured meats to Denver menus over the past couple of years, Il Porcellino is the first retail market in town to sell only house-made salumi — and what it's opening with is only the beginning. As the shop is able to build up inventory over the coming months, look for a growing range of dry-cured products as well as creative specials that the team dreams up (green-chile head cheese, perhaps?).

Il Porcellino is open from 10:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday. Keep reading for a few more photos of what to expect today.